To really understand my four-step process when building a great salad, I have to first explain how my brain works in relation to food. I crave food not just by flavor but by texture and temperature. In creating a new recipe or a meal, I imagine how I want each bite to feel in my mouth. I've always been this way—my mom would ask "what should we make for dinner?" and I'd answer with descriptions of how I wanted things to feel: "I want something I can really chew on.""Something soft." "Something crunchy."

So it's no surprise that I'm a sucker for salads, where chewy, soft and crunchy easily coexist. But that brings me to my second craving: temperature. Unless it's the hot height of summer, I don't really like to eat an exclusively cold dinner. So I make sure my salads have a mix of cold and warm parts.

Cold and Chewy

Step 3: add Something Warm

Warm and Crispy-edged

Try any roasted vegetables that are caramelized and crisp on the outside and tender inside, like sweet potatoes, cauliflower, mushrooms, carrots, or any kind of squash.

Warm and Creamy

Eggs: soft boiled, fried, or over-easy—so long as they have a runny yolk that turns into a creamy warm dressing over your salad. Cooked beans warmed in a little olive oil also satisfy the warm and creamy itch.

Step 4: Dress to Taste, Finish With Crunch

The dressing is where you get to really play with flavor: make your own and the sky's the limit on what kind of ingredients you can use. The dressing is also another place you can add texture: a creamy yogurt dressing can be amazing on an otherwise crunch-forward salad. Once it's dressed, add even more crunch (the dressing will help the crunchy bits stick to everything else). Nuts and seeds are never out of place in any salad. Neither are croutons. But the adventurous salad maker may want to go even further.